“Nay, he is but the slave of a slave. I have no master, mother; I have a mistress, and she is named Fortune.”
“The worst of mistresses,” said the old woman, “or the best, for she laughs ever behind her frown and mingles stripes with kisses.”
“The stripes I know well, but not the kisses,” answered Leonard gloomily; then added in another tone, “What is your errand, mother? How are you named, and what do you seek wandering alone in the mountains?”
“I am named Soa, and I seek succour for one whom I love and who is in sore distress. Will my lord listen to my tale?”
“Speak on,” said Leonard.
Then the woman crouched down before him and told this story.
Chapter VI.
THE TALE OF SOA
“My lord, I, Soa, am the servant of a white man, a trader who lives on the banks of the Zambesi some four days’ march from hence, having a house there which he built many years ago.”
“How is the white man named?” asked Leonard.
“The black people call him Mavoom, but his white name is Rodd. He is a good master and no common man, but he has this fault, that at times he is drunken. Twenty years ago or more Mavoom, my lord, married a white woman, a Portuguese whose father dwelt at Delagoa Bay, and who was beautiful, ah! beautiful. Then he settled on the banks of the Zambesi and became a trader, building the house where he is now, or rather where its ruins are. Here his wife died in childbirth; yes, she died in my arms, and it was I who reared her daughter Juanna, tending her from the cradle to this day.